I had pretty good results with decaling Skarab's legs, and I learned a ton of good techniques. So I though I'd do a step-by-step while I do the arms the same way and share some of what I've learned.

Here's a movie with the "first draft" of the decals for the front of the arms as well as the decal itself which I'm creating in Photoshop.

Here's a screen shot of the final decals for the front half of the legs. I'll be doing the same treatment for the arms, combining a color map, displacement map, specular map and specular intensity map. The last two I'm not sure if they're exactly what I want though I consider them finished for now. The nice thing is that if I want to modify them I just make the changes in Photoshop, save as a targa, and the project in AM is automatically updated.

I've found though that when saving the displacement map in OpenEXR format, I get an error that the file is in use and I have to save under a new name, re-import into the images folder in AM, and replace the image under decals. I guess this is a quirk of the OpenEXR format, not a biggie, so I'm sticking with this format for the dm for now. I probably could close down AM while saving the OpenEXR file, but either way it's a few extra steps.

Here's the final rough sketch with the placement of all the shapes working well when I render the model. This will be my guide for creating all the subsequent maps.

Thanks for doing that tut! Post a link the Tutorials forum with some key words so people can find it with searches.

Here's a screen shot showing how I have the PS file set up. I keep everything on layers so I can go back and tweak, then "Save as..." and just write over the Targa image. I'm also attaching a movie with this decal applied.

I've created a path for each color area not only so everything I need is saved, but so everything is easily modified as I progress. Also I only do one arm, then copy the layer and flip horizontal for the other arm. This is still a work in progress as I have to see how the decal applies and make sure the shapes are mostly retained. I have a lot of leeway though, since no one will be holding me to "realistic anatomy" rules.

Rob, I'll do that a little later in the process. Thanks for the comment!

Speaking of decals, I though I read about an update to A:M 3d Paint? Anyway thanks for the nice tut.

I really should learn about some of these paint apps. I keep reading about ZBrush and 3D Paint and have never even played with them.

The new Mudbox is very nice too. Good tutorial, Gerry!

thanks Paul. I'll be adding more today or tomorrow. Got kind of sidetracked with this water tute.

In looking at the final placement from various angles I can see some problems that I'll attempt to fix either by tweaking the decal or using "edit decal" as shown in Caroline's great decaling tute.

Even though the decal was applied in a flattened action there seems to be some distortion at the edges. I'm not sure whether the fix is to re-flatten and re-apply but I'm finding there are some imperfections that I *think* I can live with for the present. I think the distortion is from the fact that I didn't "unwrap" the mesh in the action but just scaled to zero in the Z axis, then moved cp's around a bit.

In the legs there's also a seam visible where the front and back decals meet. One more thing I've decided not to worry about for the present.

I hid some layers in the Photoshop file, and on a new layer I roughly painted where I thought the new gold shapes should go, then saved as the decal tga file. With a quick render in the model window I could easily check that the shapes are falling closer to where i want them. Now I can redo the paths so I can create the new shapes more neatly.

this is a screen shot of the "Edit decal" window and the model window. You can access the "Edit decal" window by right clicking in the PWS on the stamp entry under the model decal.

Here's the final positioning of the edited decal. I still feel like it isn't 100% but it's way better than it was and I'm hoping the disp. map will make it look a little more acceptable.

In looking at this so far (and comparing to my original comic book art) I think I've got too many alternating stripes and he's starting to look a little harlequin-like. I may have to take a step back and think about this.

Similar comment on the legs except that I think I just need to switch the colors, ie, green for gold, gold for green. that would be a *relatively* easy fix, though I may leave it til later and fix it once the arms are done.

I see color but I don't see displacement. Or is it not displacement yet?

No, no displacement yet. I'm solving all these positioning and painting problems with just the color decal, then when it's good I can do the other decals (displacement, specular intensity and specular size) and then just "add image" to the color decal.

Here's the new arm color decal as well as a displacement map, though it's not showing up very prominently.

Here's a pretty cool mistake caused by something in the QT compression settings. I'll have to see just what did this and remember it!

Thats strange ,pretty good though ,nice job on the arms

...and here's what I meant to show! This has the arm fronts finished with all decals, though the specularity isn't working like I want. But again this is something I can go back to once everything's done. But I'm happier with the coloring, where I used the green to shade the gold portions, giving it overall a more organic, less hard-edged feel. Much closer to the comic book art.

The arm backs have just a rough sketch of the color map and I'll use this to refine the shapes and how they match up at the seam down the sides of the arms.

Yea thats a lot better ,looking good ,nice decals

Thanks Steve. Things are slow at work again, so I'm shooting for finishing the arms today.

Screen shot of the final rough sketch before I start creating paths in the photoshop doc to refine the shapes.

Finished color map applied. It's not matching up at the seam along the side of the arm but I'll just add that to my list of things to fix later!

I like the softer look of the color on the arms. Will the legs get that too?

Yeah, the color scheme for this guy has always been predominantly green with gold accents, and I got away from that on the legs, making the colors more hard-edged than I wanted, with way too much gold. I'll be going back to that to tweak once the arms are done.

One of the things I've been struggling with was having a clear "system" for layering the colors, considering I would have to put this aside for weeks at a time. Not just how to create the shading, but having a set color palette, which I neglected to do at the outset. Only after I started on the arms did I work out a consistent approach.

I've run into a problem where the patches on the arm with a displacement map are raised above the adjoining mesh. this screen shot shows the behavior of the front of the arm, vs. the back of the arm with no disp map applied yet.

Is there a way to keep the mesh continuous so it doesn't look like he's wearing a sweater? will a 50% grey represent "neutral" or no displacement?

EDIT: got this fixed. I'll post something on Monday.

I didn't get any screen shots of this alignment issue in progress, but the long and short of it is that I added an airbrushed layer to the psd displacement file, reapplied the OpenEXR version and tested to see if I fixed it. As I got closer, I would open up the layered PSD, lock the pixels on the gradient layer, and lighten or darken slightly until the surfaces lined up. As it was on a layer I could also shift its position.

As I mentioned earlier, trying to save over an OpenEXR file generated an error message if A:M is open, so I closed it down then relaunched after the image was created. The alternative is to create a progression of numbered decal files then keep track of them in the images folder. With this kind of back-and-forth testing that can get out of hand.

Once I got the surfaces to line up I created a new material for the hands that's a simple gradient so the color would match at the wrist, but lighten up for the hand. I matched the color strictly by eye, so it may come in for some color tweaking after I've looked at it some more.

doesn't 128,128,128 create neutral displacement?

I'm not sure what that would be in OpenEXR values.

I wasn't sure at all about that. I guess it would now that you mention it, but trial and error worked fine. Another side note to this is that the screen shot I posted last Friday, with the arm wider than the wrist, was itself an error! I checked the opposite arm for the same thing and discovered that the arm was actually NARROWER than the wrist (of course, duh! the disp map at that point was a dark grey) and that arm in the screen shot I posted had flipped normals!